The CONEX box (Container, express) was a type of

cargo container An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – from ship ...

developed during the

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...

that was used to transport and store supplies during the Korean and

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...

wars. It was reinvented by

Malcom McLean Malcolm Purcell McLean (November 14, 1913 – May 25, 2001; later known as Malcom McLean) was an American businessman. He was a transport entrepreneur who invented the modern intermodal shipping container, which revolutionized transport and inte ...

to form the standard

Intermodal shipping container An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – from ship ...

(often called an ISO box, after

ISO 6346 ISO 6346 is an international standard covering the coding, identification and marking of intermodal (shipping) containers used within containerized intermodal freight transport by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). T ...

) that is used widely by

container shipping companies A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

today.

History

The use of standardized steel and aluminum

shipping container A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context o ...

s began during the late 1940s and early 1950s, when commercial shipping operators and the US military started developing such units. During World War II, the US Army began experiments with containers to ship supplies to the front lines. Cargo was being delayed at ports due to the time required by break bulk loading and offloading of ships. In addition the supplies suffered from pilferage and in-transit damage. In 1948 the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

Transportation Corps The Transportation Corps is a combat service support branch of the U.S. Army. It is responsible for the movement of personnel and material by truck, rail, air, and sea. It is one of three U.S. Army logistics branches, the others being the Qu ...

developed the "Transporter", a rigid,

corrugated steel Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a b ...

container, able to carry . It was long, wide, and high, with double doors on one end, was mounted on skids, and had lifting rings on the top four corners. After proving successful in Korea, the Transporter was developed into the Container Express (CONEX) box system in late 1952. Based on the Transporter, the size and capacity of the Conex were about the same, but the system was made ''modular'', by the addition of a smaller, half-size unit of long, wide and high.Development of Containerization // J. van Ham, J. Rijsenbrij
Steel containers
(page 8) CONEXs could be stacked three high, and protected their contents from the elements. By 1965, the US military had some 100,000 CONEX boxes, and by 1967, over 100,000 more had been procured to support the escalation of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietna ...

, making this the world's first intercontinental application of intermodal containers. More than three quarters were shipped only once, because they remained in theatre. The CONEX boxes were as useful to the soldiers as their contents, in particular as storage facilities where there were no other options. The term "CONEX" remains in common use in the US military to refer to the similar but larger ISO-standard shipping containers. File:Conex box.jpeg File:Conex box picture.jpeg

Notes

References

{{reflist Intermodal containers

History

See also

Notes

References